(IDEX Online) - Alrosa's total rough and polished sales for February dropped 14 per cent to $346.6m, the company announced today.The Russian mining giant said coronavirus had reduced diamond demand and was likely to do so in the coming months. Sales in January totaled $405.0mAlrosa yesterday blamed weak demand for a 21 per cent drop in revenue and a 31 per cent slump in net profit for 2019 when it announced its annual results.Today Deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev said: "Our February sales were 14% down compared to January. In February, the uncertainty with the spread of COVID19 virus started to weigh on negatively on the demand and customers' activity, the factor that will be impacting demand in the coming months."However, we continue to pursue 'price-over-volume' strategy to keep prices stable rather than increasing sales volumes."